Unwinding after a sprint

Over the years I’ve noticed that it seems I’m always extremely busy before and after taking time off from work. It’s almost pointless to have time off from work since I always end up getting worked so hard that I end up needing the time off instead of just enjoying the time off.

At the beginning of August I found out about a new project at my day job that kicked off an intense week of planning before taking a week off in South Padre. It was suddenly a really bad time to take a vacation but it had been planned for months.

When I returned, I decided to pack up my office and move closer to the developers I’d be supporting. I spent the next two weeks `embedded` with this development team attempting to gain their trust, understand their problem domain, influence their software design choices and ultimately deliver the best build and installer experience possible. When I first started interacting with this team I wasn’t sure it was going to go well but it actually turned out really nice. We completed our first sprint and delivered the first 10 of about 40 installs to QA. The ground work has been laid and the remaining 30 installs will just be details over the coming months.

Since then, I’ve spent the last two days enjoying labor day weekend with my family. It’s been so relaxing. I’ve missed them so much and it’s so nice to hear my family say “Daddy, where have you been? We miss you.” It feels like I’m back in South Padre spending all day and all night with them once again.